THE LOOKBACK

The 9 things to know before Week 7

1) Last weekend was easily the best weekend in the history of Vanderbilt football after the Commodores shocked the world and beat top-ranked Alabama 40-35. You may recall the scenes of the hometown crowd parading the goal posts down Broadway in Nashville, before ultimately them in the Cumberland River. Sensing a unique moment, Vandy decided to strike while the iron was hot and give its NIL program a boost by auctioning off pieces of the goal posts.

2) Speaking of Vandy, Diego Pavia’s legend has only grown since orchestrating the upset over Alabama. His journey — from junior college to New Mexico State to Vanderbilt — is only now getting the press it deserves. In something of a life-coming-full-circle moment this past week, Pavia’s childhood idol, Johnny Manziel, dropped by to offer his congratulations during a guest spot on ESPN’s College Football Live. Pavia’s excitement is palpable.

3) The Transfer Portal has completely reshapen college football as we know it… and is still very much evolving. This week, the NCAA announced that it would shorten the duration of two transfer windows to a total of 30 days, down from 45. Yes, there will still be two windows (one in winter, one in spring) during which a player can bolt, but the hope is that the compressed timetable can better contain the TOTAL UPHEAVAL OF EVERYTHING, and not drag things out.

4) Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck is nothing if not a character. In a truly weird coaching moment, Fleck gave his players an “antidote of confidence” in the form of Sprite capsules after losing to Michigan. The Gophers went on to upset USC.

Sprite, huh? Who knew?

5) Cam Rising is so back! Rising will finally return this week after injuring his finger back in Week 2 against Baylor. After several weeks of playing the will-he-won’t-he game, it appears Rising is good to go for Arizona State.

6) We can all relate to a good travel nightmare story. This week, James Franklin took to the mic to lament the length of the runway at State College Regional Airport, which is apparently too short to launch a plane headed to Los Angeles. So, in order to fly out to USC, Penn State needed to bus its players 90 minutes south to Harrisburg which is… yes, a bit inconvenient.

On a personal note, after driving that stretch of Route 322 many times, I can attest to both its picturesque landscape as well as its near constant state of major construction. Honestly, I’d rather walk. I HEAR YOU, JAMES.

7) With Texas and Oklahoma set to renew their rivalry this weekend, Dan did the hard investigative work and put together a quick rundown of the new food items available outside the Cotton Bowl at the Texas State Fair. Watch for the Cookie Butter Nachos, but stay for the phrase “Too many cheeses, Texas.”

@solidverbal

Behold the new food items at the 2024 Texas State Fair, just outside the Texas vs Oklahoma rivalry game. Which ones are you trying?

8) While we’re out here tooting our own horn, there is apparently a mysterious “Red River Rivalry Trophy” that is also on the line this weekend, in addition to the well-known Golden Hat. We couldn’t find a picture of this thing anywhere on the web. Help us find it please.

9) Texas Tech unveiled new-look uniforms this week, thanks to Patrick Mahomes' help. Each uniform is grey and has his gladiator logo on it. What do you think?

PLAY OUR WEEK 7 PICK’EM GAME!

You’ve got a little over 24 hours to join our pick’em game, Run The Board, for a chance to win a $100 Rhoback gift card. Just sign up for any of our paid Patreon tiers (starting at just $5) and pick the winners to 13 games and props:

• South Carolina vs Alabama

• Cal vs Pitt

• Northern Illinois vs Bowling Green

• Texas vs Oklahoma

• Quinn Ewers passing yards vs Oklahoma

• Penn State vs USC

• Washington State vs Fresno State

• Florida vs Tennessee

• Ohio State vs Oregon

• Dillon Gabriel passing yards vs Ohio State

• Ole Miss vs LSU

• Iowa State vs West Virginia

• Kansas State vs Colorado

Think you have what it takes? Sign up now to play Run The Board and reap the benefits of our other Patreon perks, including ad-free episodes, bonus content, unfettered access to our great Discord community, and much more!

The game locks at 11:59 AM ET on Saturday!

THE LOOKAHEAD

Our Week 7 Locks are…

But there’s more to Week 7 than our possibly flawed locks…

Your full Week 7 Preview Pod is live!

With an overabundance of close games on the docket, we catch a whiff of what appears to be an incredible weekend of college football. In this episode, we wrestle with the Texas vs Oklahoma point spread, debate the impacts of Penn State’s airport woes, disagree on Iowa State’s 12-win potential, and put together a four-part rubric for picking the winner of Ohio State vs Oregon. Plus, a second straight road tester for Ole Miss, renewed questions about Tennessee, Kansas State’s trip to Colorado, Stanford’s insane travel schedule and PJ Fleck’s magic elixir.

▶️ Listen on Apple Podcasts

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▶️ Watch on YouTube

Also, don’t forget that our new video series, Big Ten Breakfast, goes live every Friday morning at 9am ET out on our YouTube channel.